


Ansel's Story

by KorilineshipsDestiel247



Category: The Arrival: Shaun Tan
Genre: Death, F/M, Fan-fiction, Flashbacks, Gen, Immigration, Violence, similarities to the holocaust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 00:44:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5986600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KorilineshipsDestiel247/pseuds/KorilineshipsDestiel247
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was part of an assignment for my graphic novel course. I took a scene from Shaun Tan's "The Arrival" (which has no words, only pictures) and put words to it. If you look up images of the book, you'll find a picture of a small city being destroyed by giants in exterminator suits, and that's what this fan fiction was based on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ansel's Story

“I apologise for the way I reacted to your pet,” Gi-seok tells Ansel, still trying to catch his breath.

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” the other man replies as he picks up a Zithurian candied yam and places it in the basket. “It’s no problem at all. I have to ask though: why did you react that way?”

“Well, back in my home country there was this big… ah… monster with these large… these huge… these gigantic... Ugh.”

“Take your time,” says Ansel kindly.

“Let me draw it for you.” Gi-seok takes out his drawing pad and begins to sketch: first the houses, simple in their design, then the wavy lines and sharp spikes of the monster’s appendages. He shows it to Ansel, who looks at it with something like horror and sympathy in his eyes. Gi-seok waits for him to say something along the lines of, “Oh you poor man” or some such platitude that will do nothing to bring Isidora and his precious little Celestyna to him, but instead Ansel places a comforting hand on his shoulder and looks him in the eye.

“I can imagine how you must have felt. I’ve felt that kind of terror before and I promise you, you are safe here.”

“Have you really?” Gi-seok asks sceptically.

“Indeed,” says Ansel. “It was ten years ago…”

XxXxXxXxX

Ansel punches his time card. It’s the end of his work day and all he wants to do is get home to his wife Henrike and her wonderful home-cooked meals and their comfortable feather down mattress. He chats briefly with his friend Emilis and tells his supervisor Declan that he’d like to take tomorrow off because it will be his and Henrike’s first anniversary and he has special plans to take her on a boat ride before going to the Andaladian restaurant that they both love so much. Saying good-bye to them he walks down the street, cheerfully whistling a folksong.

It’s as he’s walking down a side street toward the comfortable little house that he happily calls his that he starts to notice that something is wrong. Looking toward one of the main roads ahead he sees people running and hears a strange sucking sound, like a vacuum cleaner. It’s in the distance, but it’s steadily becoming louder. There’s a pit in his stomach and he starts walking faster. When he gets to the door he fumbles with the key and drops it twice before finally unlocking the door. The house smells of Henrike’s magnificent hackleberry pie, but he doesn’t have time to stop and enjoy it. “Henrike!” he calls.

Henrike comes to the door, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling. “Hello my darling!” she says. Then the smile drops from her face as she takes in Ansel’s fearful demeanour. “Ansel, what is it?”

“Henrike, get your coat. We have to go now.”

Henrike pales. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know, but there are people running in the streets and I think we should follow them.”

Henrike grabs her coat and they hurry out. Force of habit is what tells Ansel to lock the door behind them. They run down the long alley toward the main road. All the while the sky is glowing an ominous red, the screams and the sucking noises are getting louder and the earth shakes under their feet.

“My god!” gasps Henrike as they exit the alley. Ansel looks up, and what he sees freezes him in his tracks.

Everyone has heard of the country of Gigantina. They are people who had lived in peace with the smaller folk of the other countries -Andaladia, Elmeria, Roisland and so many others- until their current president, Achille Hubrecht, came to power. Under his presidency, he has since declared the smaller people inferior and created an elite unit of the Gigantinian army, known as the Brown Suits, to aid in their extermination. Ansel, along with everyone else, thought they were safe because their country, Abdernia, had signed a truce with Gigantina, but now that illusion is dashed to pieces as he and Henrike watch the brown suits destroy everything that they know with their extermination packs. One suit sucks up friends and neighbours, sending them to a fiery death; one burns the buildings; another sucks them up, and the fourth suit is destroying the birds as they try to escape. It is a horrendous sight.

“Ansel, let’s go!” cries Henrike frantically, tugging at her husband’s coat. Ansel breaks out of his stupor and takes her hand and they run. They run past Ansel’s co-workers, Henrike’s book club friends, complete strangers, all of them trying to get away from almost certain death. They run and they run until Ansel trips. He’s about to get up to keep running until he sees what he tripped over: a manhole cover that is slightly ajar. Someone else must have climbed down into the sewers to get away from the Brown Suits. He lifts the manhole cover away and pulls Henrike over to it.

“Go!” he cries, helping his wife down into the hole. “I’ll come down after you!” When Henrike is down Ansel starts his descent, stopping briefly to pull the manhole cover back into place. He’s not a second too soon; no sooner does the manhole cover clang shut then he hears the ground-shaking footsteps of one of the Brown Suits. He and Henrike hold their breaths, waiting for the manhole cover to be opened and for them to be sucked to their deaths, but it never happens. Instead, the footsteps get closer and then fade away as the Brown Suit passes them by. They both breathe sighs of relief.

-

They wander through the sewers for hours until they can’t hear the periodic rumbling steps of the Brown Suits anymore.

“Do you think it’s safe to go out?” Henrike asks.

“I don’t know,” replies Ansel. “Let me check.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No! You need to carry on if I get sucked up!”

“If you go, I go!” Henrike says just a little too loudly.

“Shh!” Ansel hisses, putting his hand over her mouth. “Fine, but I’ll go first.”

It’s a tense climb up to the manhole cover. Ansel pushes the cover up and over, fully expecting to get sucked up at any second… but there is nothing. There is nothing but dead silence and the overwhelming smell of smoke and the blockish shapes of the Anarian Mountains upon which their once-beautiful city rests rising threateningly above them as they climb out. They cling to each other as they try to get their bearings.

“Where do we go?” asks Henrike.

Ansel has no idea so they just start walking and climbing, praying that they don’t run into any of the Brown Suits. They have one close call when they nearly round a corner and see a suit standing on the other side, but other than that close call their journey is relatively tedious. They wander for hours, not knowing where to go or what to do, until they are exhausted. They are about to give up when they see a light coming toward them. Henrike whimpers. “Oh god, they spotted us. We’re going to die.”

Ansel pulls her close and waits for the end, but when the glow rounds the corner he realises that it’s the dock keeper, Javed. He breathes a sigh of relief as the man waves to them. “It’s all right, darling,” he tells Henrike, “it’s only the dock keeper.”

She too breathes a sigh of relief after turning to confirm her husband’s words. “How ever did you survive?” she calls softly to the dock keeper.

“I was checking the boats when I saw the Brown Suits in the distance,” says Javed. “I hid in one of them until the suits were gone.”

“Are there any boats left?” asks Ansel.

“Just one. Take this map and ladder and you’ll find it.”

“Oh, bless you,” says Henrike, reaching for the map, but Javed holds it out of her reach.

“I’m not doing this for free,” he says.

“We have a real Zircanidian diamond necklace given to her by my mother,” says Ansel.

“Ansel!” says Henrike, shocked.

“We need to get out of here,” he says, “and if that means pawning an heirloom then so be it.”

Henrike looks stricken, but after a moment she unclasps the necklace and hands it over to Javed, who pockets it and hands her the map. “Go now,” he says. “I don’t know if they’ll come back. God bless you.”


End file.
